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Eggs and Issues

I’m chief cook and bottle washer here. This means I do all of the planning, shopping and preparation of meals as well as the cleaning up. This means that should another individual in the household clean out the dishwasher or carry a dish to the sink, they are not contributing to the household, they are “helping mom”.

Every once in awhile the burden feels too great. In other words, every once in awhile I get fed up.

Case in point, this Sunday morning vignette:

BigB: I’m going to boil myself some eggs.

Chicken: Thinks to self, “Well how nice for you” but says “I’ll make littleb some waffles.”

littleb: I don’t like homemade waffles.

Chicken: (in disbelief) You liked them yesterday!

littleb: No. I didn’t. They made my stomach hurt.

Chicken: Fine. You can make your own breakfast. How about that?

Chicken to BigB: He’s eleven. He should start making his own breakfast. We baby him too much!

BigB: (Takes big bite of English muffin. Looks scared)

…Later on that morning:

BigB: You can make waffles for me anytime. (Laughs because A. thinks he is so hilarious and B. thinks it is safe to comment now.)

Chicken: (not laughing because A. thinks he is so not funny at all and B. he is incorrect) You also can make me breakfast anytime, BigB. I never make breakfast without making it for everybody. You’re all like, “I’m going to boil myself some eggs!”

BigB: (Shrugs) Well, there were only two eggs left. (#exonerated).

Chicken: (emits evil laugh. Moves in for the kill) First of all, there’s another dozen eggs right out in the open where anyone who isn’t you would see them. Second of all, you thought there were only two eggs left and you appropriated both of them for yourself? (#micdrop)

BigB: I’m screwed.

Chicken: Yeah, you really stepped in it this time.

Two hours later….

BigB: Wanders into the kitchen just as I wipe down the last counter top. Makes himself lunch. Wanders back to office.

Chicken: Considers saying something. Decides against it. Instead, transports self to imaginary world where only cooks for self while hungry men cry and feel sorry about taking formerly generous meal preparer for granted.

My husband (and this seems typical of other men I’ve observed) doesn’t see what needs doing, but he’ll do it if I ask him to. I don’t WANT to have to ask, but he’s okay with it. Especially more okay than having me get steamed at him. Similarly, our daughter told me that her husband said before they were married – don’t get mad at me if I don’t do stuff around the house and it looks obvious to you that it needs done. I’m a man and I just don’t see that stuff the way a woman does. Just TELL me to do it! I’ll do it! – (and he does) . . . Which is similar to what it’s taken me almost forty years to figure out. I used to nag my husband to tell me what he was thinking about if he was staring off into space. He would say “Nothing” and it turns out (after a LOT of discussion, believe me) that he was actually capable of thinking of nothing. I can’t do that. My thoughts are always jumping around and reproducing like bunnies. There’s always SOMETHING going through my head. How can you NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING? But he does. Maybe it’s not a trait that’s widespread in men but it would explain a lot, and it has made life here a lot less frosty . . .

Hi Jenny, I have long believed that if you ask someone to do something, you have to back off and let them do it their way. You don’t get to dictate how it is done. I think this is why I don’t ask for help much. BigB would also willingly do whatever I ask. He just does it in his own way and in his own time. It’s the time frame that kills me sometimes:-)

My friend Jack tells the story of his mom saying to him when he was a kid “Do you plan on eating on a regular basis?” “Why yes, I believe I do, mother.” “Well those are the pots and pans and I suggest you learn how to use them.”
Having been a cook for my job for a long time, I have conflicted feelings about cooking for everyone. I like doing it, but I don’t move as quickly or easily as I used to, and I get surprised at how that can impact my ability to do things in the kitchen.
I have just resigned myself to doing the dishes, though. It’s sort of a trade off for the kinds of house cleaning I’m really no good at, such as the floors, which take a really long time to clean when you walk with a cane…

Hi Doug-sounds like Jack had a good mom:-) My dad was the chief cook in my house going up. He was not the chief bottle washer, though. That would have been me or my stepmom. And he would dirty every. single. pan. He was a good cook, though, so we let it go. I was a banquet cook at a hotel for awhile back in the day. It is amazing how much faster you are when you work in a kitchen every day. I’m not as fast as I used to be either. And I’d trade floors for dish washing any day. Floors don’t have to be washed several times a day!

There are habits I picked up from restaurant cooking that I’m really thankful for, like when I serve the food, my cooking utensils are already clean and in the dish drainer, so “doing the dishes” for me just means the ones we ate off of/with. Not such a chore when the hard ones are already done.

Ha. I’m the same way. remember that? Clean as I go. If I had a dishwasher, though, I might be tempted to do otherwise. Another thing I learned from being a kitchen worker is mise en place. I still adhere to that simple rule.